Senate Conservatives Go After John McCain

Sen. John McCain announced his expected re-election bid for the senior Arizona Senate seat he has occupied for nearly 30 years. Just one day later, the Senate Conservatives Fund — a conservative political action committee founded by McCain’s former Senate colleagues — announced it will seek to defeat him in the primary.

SCF President Ken Cuccinelli charged McCain with ‘betraying conservative principles’ and vowed to support a Republican challenger in next year’s Arizona primary. Club for Growth, a pro-free market PAC, also signaled it may join efforts to unseat him as well,reportsThe Hill.

McCain’s defeat in the 2000 primary and his difficult path to the nomination in 2008 were hampered by his ongoing feud with the conservative base of the Republican Party which has seen him often as a turncoat on key issues like immigration, campaign finance and global warming.

In McCain’s 2010 reelection to the Senate, he defeated two primary opponents by an unimpressive margin of 56%. If a well-known candidate backed by big money supporters enters the race, McCain’s future in the Senate could quickly become uncertain.